


the one i love (whose name i won't let out)

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Challenge: sticksandsnark, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-19
Updated: 2008-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-03 14:17:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney set up the baby monitor for her. He arranged it so that the little speaker in Teyla's quarters would broadcast into her earpiece no matter where she was: whether speaking to Samantha in the 'gate room, or working through gentle exercises in the gym as she regained her flexibility, or simply sitting in the living area of her new, larger quarters, working through the lists of supplies she could requisition for her people as they struggled to re-establish themselves on New Athos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the one i love (whose name i won't let out)

**Author's Note:**

> For Sardonicsmiley, who wanted baby names and music, a much-belated pinch-hit for the sticksandsnark challenge. My sincere apologies for the delay, and for how rushed this is, but I thought you would probably prefer not to wait any longer. Many thanks to Trin and Cate for audiencing.

Rodney set up the baby monitor for her. He arranged it so that the little speaker in Teyla's quarters would broadcast into her earpiece no matter where she was: whether speaking to Samantha in the 'gate room, or working through gentle exercises in the gym as she regained her flexibility, or simply sitting in the living area of her new, larger quarters, working through the lists of supplies she could requisition for her people as they struggled to re-establish themselves on New Athos.

But though he had to know perfectly well that it was there, Rodney tended to forget about the monitor; often, over the next few weeks, Teyla had to fight to keep her face impassive when in a meeting, knowing how unprofessional it would be to grin broadly in the midst of a negotiation—no matter that her amusement was caused by the sound of Atlantis' chief scientist instructing a four month old in the intricacies of Earth's classical music. Rodney seemed to treat the child's babbles and his little squeaks of happiness with more consideration and deference than he would the opinions of the most respected scholars of Schubert and Mendelssohn, of that Teyla was sure.

Once, she could have sworn that the strange noise she'd heard in her ear had been the sound of Rodney blowing a raspberry against the baby's belly, a hypothesis supported by her son's high-pitched giggles and the sheepish sound of Rodney's voice afterwards. She'd actually had to excuse herself from a meeting on something as important as the tava bean harvest, pretending she had to visit the restroom though all she did was lean against the wall outside and laugh softly to herself until her stomach ached. It had been a long time since she had laughed so hard or so truly, and of all people, she hadn't expected that such a source of unfettered happiness could come from Rodney, but it was not unwelcome.

The afternoons when Rodney baby-sat seemed to have as much of an effect on her son as they did on Teyla. They'd brought him around from his initial uncertainty when Teyla had placed him in Rodney's arms for the first time, harried and late for their trade negotiations with the Benaai—when he'd stared up at Rodney with that curious, long-distance gaze that all babies seemed to possess—to delighted babbling whenever Rodney barrelled through the door.

Rodney was perpetually late from whichever experiment had detained him in the labs this time and grousing to Teyla that surely Sheppard could do this, the man had nothing to do with his days other than play with his hair, and he was _this_ close to a break-through on a quantum Yang-Mills theory; but he could scoop the baby up with a now-practised hand, and all that awkward, fearful distance was gone.

Teyla wondered if Rodney knew how much his attitude had changed. She'd heard it evolve over months, the changing inflections of Rodney's voice carried along radio waves, folding through the corridors of Atlantis to reach her: the formal recitations of the periodic table when Teyla had first persuaded him to look after the child; to the recitation of stories gathered from somewhere on Earth called Sesame Street, whose inhabitants seem to delight in creating tales of implausible monsters and strangely infectious songs for their children; to singing him snatches of songs, murmuring lines of melodies that wavered between the joyous and the plaintive, just as Rodney's mood took him.

Rodney had a better voice for such things than he knew, she thought.

Time had past quickly since she had returned with her son to their home, and the naming ceremony would take place soon, at dawn on the first day of the sixth month since her son had drawn breath into tiny, powerful lungs. It was the first of so many moments which would bind her son more firmly to the Athosian people over time; the day when Teyla would give her child the name which he would carry throughout his life. She had thought, perhaps somewhat more idly than she should have for such a serious decision, as to what that name would be: whether Tagan, for lost family, or Kanan, for lost love, or Ronon, for the mischievous joy of watching the surprise on the faces of her regained family.

Teyla had trusted that her son's beloved face on that dawn would help her decide, but from the moment she told him about the ceremony, Rodney had taken it more seriously than anyone else would credit, and researched names with a thoroughness that didn't quite surprise her. One morning, while she was taking some of the scientists through the graceful, athletic movements of the _tar nen_, she switched her ear-piece over to the monitor channel, and listened in as Rodney called out a list of names, probably from that curious book of names for children which he had had Jeannie send from Earth.

There was the distant click of laptop keys, the rustle of something that might have been paper, or might have been her son kicking at his bedclothes—Rodney had shown a perhaps unconscious preference for sitting very close to the baby while he worked—followed by a small sigh which Teyla would have bet long odds against an Arneller trader was accompanied by an eye-roll. "This," he said, "this is why I don't ask people for additional suggestions. The spreadsheet I had was perfectly adequate, and was fully cross-referenced with both Athosian _and_ Ancient names and their meaning. Painstakingly footnoted and culturally respectful, and then I get things like _this_."

Teyla told her class to stretch and bend, made them hold it for a count of sixty while she listened to Rodney read out Ronon's suggestion. "If I may quote it in full, 'ronon good for a girl better for a boy specialist ronon dex first class.' As admirable as it is that Ronon likes to preserve rank distinction even in casual e-mails, his attitude towards punctuation gives me a mild aneurysm, and I'm not even going to touch his suggestion for a name. You and I, little man? We're going to be serious about our grammar when we start on your schooling, hmm?"

"And now reach up," Teyla said, encouraging her class to reach for the high, curved roof of the gym, walking between their ranks to correct their posture while she listened to Rodney say, "This one is from your Aunt Jeannie. Her suggestions include such marvels as: Ethan, Benjamin, Noah, Tristan, Carter—oh god, now I know she's fucking with me. Uh. Shit, don't tell your mom I cursed in front of you, okay?"

The baby gurgled in apparent approval, and as Teyla corrected Miko's foot positioning, she hid her giggle by pretending that she'd had a sudden, brief fit of sneezing.

"Zachary," Rodney continued, "Robert, Bradley, Sebastian—god, where is she getting these? Okay, in this instance and this instance only, I think I'm going to have to proclaim that the English major is the one who has veto in all naming related decisions. I never want to end up with a nephew called Tristan. Though actually I think the Canadian constitution forbids cruel and unusual punishment. One of our many innate points of superiority over Americans, and never let Sheppard tell you otherwise."

Teyla dismissed her class with a smile, and praise for a job well done, though the Ancestors knew that most of them had all the grace of Halling drunk on _ruus_ wine, and would never make even passable practitioners of _tar nen_. She moved to the back of the room as they filed out, and used a blessedly free moment of her time to move through an additional set of exercises, stretching out on the mat and into a position which made her limbs ache pleasurably. She held herself there, focusing on her breathing, and listened for her son's laughter and the click of laptop keys as Rodney moved to the next email.

"And now your Uncle John," Rodney said dryly, "Who favours either testosterone-fuelled, manly-man names—John, how surprising, James, Harry, Joe, Steve McQueen, and yes, he wants the full name, Charlton, Hank—or what are apparently Sheppard family names, in an 'I'm from Virginia and my family may have been the inspiration for a Faulkner novel' kind of way—Evelyn, Ashley, Parker, Julian, St John, Augustine, and... Vivian? Wait, _Vivian_?"

Teyla felt her arms wobble as she started to laugh, and she collapsed onto the mat when she heard Rodney confide earnestly in her son that he would absolutely ensure that John would never, ever inflict a name like Vivian on him. Rodney had known the pain of being saddled with an unforgivable name as a child, and as bad as Meredith was, Vivian was just... no, _no_, and also it was clearly time for John to give into the urges that had him checking out some of the other guys in the showers.

"I don't think Lorne's going to wait forever," Rodney said in a voice of deep deliberation, "no matter how much Sheppard ogles his ass. Plus, much longer and Ronon's going to get all yenta and you know how well that worked out last time." His assured tones, however, vanished when he discovered that the increasing pitch of the baby's noises had nothing to do with agreement as to John's romantic inclinations, but because he had filled his diaper.

Clean-up operation accomplished, Rodney must have put the baby down for a nap and returned to his work, to the equations which he had smugly assured Samantha would lead them to a break-through in ZPM manufacture, because nothing but silence came from the room, punctuated only by the occasional clearing of the throat or turning of a page. A quiet stillness, like contentment, such as Teyla remembered enjoying with her father when she was a young girl. They would sit reading together from the old books of poetry, the flap of their tent pulled back so that they could watch the spring rain fall outside, smell the damp earth and watch the signs of green things growing. It was one of the moments she always tried to remember when she was struggling to centre herself, to remember home.

What she was hearing was a contentment like family, Teyla realised, and a smile lingered on her face when she gathered up her gym bag, when she stopped off in the 'gate room to speak with Samantha and Ronon on her way back to her quarters, when she made her way along the curving corridors with a light step. When she walked into her room, Rodney looked up at her with a distracted look on his face, fingers still flying over the keyboard. "Shhh," he said in the kind of stage whisper which he had still not learned would only ever attract the interest of a child, not deflect it, "he's asleep."

Teyla left her gym bag neatly by the door, and toed off her soft-soled shoes. Then she padded across the room to where Rodney was sitting cross-legged on her bed, pulled the laptop from underneath his still tapping hands, and set it down on the floor. "What—" he said, eyes round with astonishment, "Teyla, I was using that!"

She raised her eyebrows in gentle amusement, could feel her mouth curve up just a little. "Rodney," she said, "I would not choose the name Vivian either." She could see the exact moment when he realised what had happened, his eyes growing round and his gaze flicking from her face to the baby monitor sitting on the table and back to her face again.

"Oh," he said, "I'd forgotten that was there— Well, obviously, I didn't mean to, to presume—"

"Rodney," she interrupted, settling on the bed next to him, "His name will be Kereth, for my grandfather."

"Oh," he said, gaze still fixed on her, his hands twisting a little in his lap, as if he didn't know why she was kneeling so close to him. "Oh. I like it?" he said, "I like it, it's—"

Teyla leaned in and kissed him: gentle and slow, asking a question of him with her body, with the slide of her mouth against his and the curve of her palm against his stubbled cheek. His lips were dry and warm and faintly chapped, hesitant at first, and their only points of contact were where she was touching him—sly mouth and out-stretched palm—though his body curved into hers just a little.

For a moment, Teyla thought that she might have made a mistake: that the possibility she had glimpsed between them, for all three of them, a possibility carried on secret, heart-felt whispers to her ears and hers alone, might have been a mistake. But then Rodney made a little noise in the back of his throat, a little murmur of comprehension, and his mouth opened as he began to kiss her back, one big hand coming to rest warm against her hip while his tongue twisted hot and restless against hers. He kissed well, and like all the things he did with skill, with a kind of focused intensity that made her fold around him, against him; an architecture founded on the urgency of muscle and bone and thundering blood, two bodies like buttresses flying, each holding the other up.

When Rodney pulled back a little to breathe, he rested his forehead against hers in unconscious mimicry of an Athosian greeting. "Teyla," he whispered, "_this_—" And Teyla smiled, and rested against him, and wondered at the ease with which he could give name to possibility.


End file.
